BBC Four: What attracted you to making a film about Buddhism?
Werner Herzog: I was not attracted to make a film about Buddhism. I was rather reluctant to step in because I have very little knowledge of Buddhist philosophy. I find it a strange idea for Westerners to become Buddhists. Even the Dalai Lama speaks out against that. [He says] you should not leave the religion of your traditional culture. But then there were some signals by the Dalai Lama himself that he would welcome me to do that so there was no way out any more. I must say that once I stepped into and arrived among half a million pilgrims in all their devotion and fervour in Bodh Gaya in India I did not regret for one minute that I did this film. It was fantastic work.
BBC Four: How did the film come about?
WH: I was originally invited by this group in Graz who were planning to hold the Kalachakra Initiation in Austria and I immediately said that it didn't sound right for me - it's all Westerners and I do not understand too much about Buddhism, it should be expanded much more. These are great festivities that belong to a traditional culture and ambience. There was quick agreement over that so I started to do the film.
BBC Four: What sort of differences did you experience between Bodh Gaya and Austria?
WH: It's obvious in the film that there is a different attitude among those who have adopted Buddhism as their religion. Which is fine, but in my opinion there's something strange about it. Wouldn't it look strange if you were in Bodh Gaya and saw 10,000 Tibetans in Hassidic outfits celebrating Yom Kippur? I must confess I am exaggerating but I try to think the other way around as well. Yet of course I fully agree with the Dalai Lama on one of his basic views that he voices over and over again - only through understanding other religions will we eventually create lasting peace on this planet.
BBC Four: Did you feel you could personally relate to the devotion in Bodh Gaya?
WH: I always relate to devotion because I had a very dramatic religious phase in my own youth. I converted to become a Catholic and got baptised at the age of 14. From this experience I do very deeply understand religious impulses, religious devotion and fervour. It comes very easily to me. I truly understand these people and I truly like it a lot and you can see that in the film.
BBC Four: That's especially true of the scenes at Mount Kailash. Did you feel a divine presence there?
WH: No, but I could tell that they felt a divine presence there and I had a deep affinity to that.
BBC Four: You've said in the past that you're continually seeking new images in your films. Was being able to film Mount Kailash a factor in you agreeing to make Wheel of Time?
WH: Partially yes, I think so. There was this spirit of exploring the unknown for me and that's also something deeply imbedded in me. At Mount Kailash I added to the film even though it doesn't fully belong in there and yet it's somehow the pivotal element in the film. This we have to believe is not just a sacred, symbolic cosmography like the mandala but it has to do with a landscape that is felt to be sacred for the Buddhists and the Hindus and others as well. It was a deep curiosity to show a truly sacred landscape. This was one of the reasons why I wanted to shoot Mount Kailash by myself. I was my own cinematographer for these sequences.
BBC Four: The film is full of wonderful images. Do you have any particular favourites?
WH: I must say I like the whole film as it is. Sometimes an image that looks extraordinary is only extraordinary in the context and the build-up of sensibility of the audience. When you see a monk sitting on a pillow with empty pillows all around him it is, per se, an insignificant image. In the context of the film it becomes a very, very big moment and one of the best and finest and biggest moments I've ever filmed. An image like the sacred lake from Bodhi Sarovar with lights glittering at its surface as if on a TV the dots dancing late at night when the station has switched off; it looks so strange and so unreal and in context all of a sudden it becomes so big. Many of these images have their beauty but they don't have this kind of deep significance of something you do not forget easily.
BBC Four: The music complements the images perfectly. How much of it is new?
WH: Some of it is from Nepal. There is one piece of music by Popol Vuh and Florian Fricke, who has done music for many of my films. Unfortunately Florian died a year ago. When I visited his widow I asked if she had some music I had not heard yet and I came across this piece and I knew immediately that this was the music I needed for my film. So not only does the music fit wonderfully in the film and transports the images somehow, it is also a bow in the direction of my friend who died.
BBC Four: Is it fair to say that you're not very fond of the term documentary?
WH: Not in the context of my films no. With documentaries on television you always think about animals in the Serengeti or a journalistic documentary. This is not really applicable to what I'm doing.
BBC Four: Do you differentiate much between your fiction and non-fiction films?
WH: No, I do not see the borderline. It's very blurred and things in my [non-fiction] films are partially staged. It's not just a position of observing and recording. One of the very beautiful scenes in Wheel of Time, the lonesome bodyguard at the end who seems to be forgotten and not called off his duty and protecting no one from not much of a crowd. That is staged. The distinction between what I see and record just as an observer and what I stage and the way I narrate the film and use music and the way I create a certain climate is all different from what you would normally expect from a documentary.
BBC Four: Some people might argue that your approach is slightly deceitful...
WH: I've always made it very clear that for the sake of a deeper truth, a stratum of very deep truth in movies you have to be inventive, you have to be imaginative. Otherwise you will end up with what cinema-vérité does - they are the accountants of truth. I'm after something deeper. I call it the "ecstatic truth" - the "ecstasy of truth". Wheel of Time is an example of that.
BBC Four: You ask a monk who was imprisoned for 37 years what he thought when he saw the Dalai Lama for the first time. What was your reaction?
WH: When I saw him I saw a very kind, warm-hearted human being. I think it strikes everyone who meets the Dalai Lama. Obviously there are people who feel the radiation of something much deeper and more powerful which I do not. I see the person and I wish there were more like him.
Werner Herzog answered your questions
Wheel of Time homepage
Storyville Homepage
printable version
